The Emperor’s new media
I doubt many working in the media industry ever thought they would see a major city without a daily paper in their lifetime, but that is the scenario Seattle is facing in 2009.
Across the US, the outlook for many newspapers is grim, highlighted by this interactive graph in The New York Times, which itself has borrowed $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building, to ease a potential cash flow squeeze.
Leonard Downie, VP at Large The Washington Post was recently quoted [video] as saying the business models of media “are beyond broken, it’s completely shattered … newspaper companies as we know them are going to disappear.”
Indeed, the business of model of newspapers in a digital age, coupled with the crashing economy do have a lot to do with the current media crisis, but I also think it’s ignoring what has been a growing disillusionment with modern journalism.
The latest Pew Study showed that many people would shrug their shoulders should their local papers die.
As many newspapers struggle to stay economically viable, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community “a lot.” Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available.
Can we be so quick to blame the business models of newspapers (selling advertisements) when people won’t miss the service (news) they are providing? For years journalists have been regarded alongside used-car salesmen as the least trustworthy profession and every journalist has certainly experienced the polite disdain from strangers when you tell them what you do.
There is something very wrong with the media and the quality of journalism has a lot to do with it. “News” has become so devalued that people are not willing to pay for it.
So while news corporations run around trying to breath life into the heavy carcass of their dying mediums who is nourishing new opportunities in journalism. It depresses me that the fascination we have with new media lies so heavily in marketing and new ways to advertise. Have we forgotten so quickly that news existed long before newspapers and that the modern industry was only born once we got the content right? It’s easy to blame the forces like the internet and the economy for which the media cannot take responsibility. But it’s time to face the music before all we have left is the Emperor’s New Media.
Who is going to be the first to yell that so many do not have real news and very little journlaism on their websites?
Or are we all going to pretend they are still enriching our lives for fear we might be accused of being the ignorant masses?
We have an opportunity for change, let’s not let it pass.
Here we go again.
Obviously I’m biased, but I think you’re confusing at least two very different issues here.
The reason print journalism businesses are in trouble at the moment is the crumbling COMMERCIAL MODEL. Yes? THE COMMERCIAL MODEL. That is, advertising, particularly the lucrative ‘rivers of gold’, the car, homes and jobs classifieds, are leaking inevitably onto the internet.
Circulation has NEVER paid for newspapers. It barely pays for the paper they’re printed on. Advertising has always been the business model (unless you’re the Guardian and can afford to run at a loss).
This can be proven very easily, in a thousand annual reports.
But instead, in a breathless leap of logic you say the real reason newspapers are dying because there’s something ‘devalued’ and ‘very wrong’ with our editorial output.
Thanks. I do my best. I suggest you go to the next Walkleys and make that argument. Extraordinary work, every year.
Your evidence? ALMOST HALF of Americans believe that losing their LOCAL newspaper would hurt civic life A LOT.
Come again? That sounds to me like an argument FOR people still wanting a local newspaper.
You’ve got something 42% of a country thinks is THAT important, and you’re trying to tell me there isn’t a market for it. If that’s a heavy carcass, then let’s start chopping it up and selling steaks (stakes?).
Or do you have some other evidence that news is not as good as it used to be? And the music these days! No tunes! And don’t get me started on how rude the kids are. And the crime rate!
Hey Nick, your comments are fair and I don’t see a problem with you being bias – you work as a journalist in a major Australian paper, I run my own online media company. I’m glad we can be upfront and subjective about that.
At no point did I argue that circulation was the business model of newspapers or that papers made money from charging for print editions. I’m well aware that the cover charge of a paper is an offset for the printing cost. If you read the post I think you’ll see that I mention advertising AS the business model. Advertising rates are however set by circulation, with higher circulation figures commanding higher advertising rates. It’s why some newspapers give away large numbers of papers to unlikely paying markets ( educational institutions for example) – the pay-off being the boost in circulation figures. I know you know this, but thought I’d address circulation as you mentioned it.
On to what appears to be the real problem you have with my post which is my assertion that the esteem in which journalists and journalism are upheld IS questionable. I’d like to point out though that at no time did I say it was the “real reason newspapers are dying.” What I am arguing is that problems exist with modern journalism. Yes, good journalists, like you, do and will continue to exist, but you have to ask why the media has such a bad rapport with many people.
Don’t take my word (or generalisation) on how people perceive journalists. An interesting insight for me is to watch a twitter search on “news”, “journalists” and “journalism” on http://search.twitter.com/
If you don’t find it startling that half the population (not me!) don’t believe that what you do is important then you’re a braver journalist than I could ever have been. I drew the line at having to try and find the remaining family members of a murder-suicide by calling everyone in the phone book by their last name. I’m not saying this is the way all journalists work, but it certainly was a low-point for me personally and I understand why people are cynical.
Honestly, part of my motivation for writing the post was that I believe we need to see some positive change and see it quickly or we will land up with a sub-standard media.
I think it’s brave to draw from that Pew poll the conclusion that ”half the population don’t believe that what you (newspaper reporters) do is important”. The poll asked a specific question , to a specific population, about a specific kind of local media.
You’re extrapolating quite a distance to apply its findings to Australian metropolitan newspapers in the way you do.
Journalists have always been unpopular, including when newspapers were massively profitable. Partly because of bad apples, partly because one definition of news is ‘’something that someone didn’t want you to know”.
I like the questions that NPR’s On The Media posed about the context of the Pew poll. Were the interviewees asked to consider that the loss of a newspaper would also imply the loss of its online presence? No. So we don’t know if that would have changed the result.
Thought experiment: would Melbourne miss the Age and Herald Sun newspapers: yes, but maybe not so much in the internet-enveloped, young non-working class demographics.
Would Melbourne miss the Age and Herald Sun newspapers and websites? I have no doubt more people would agree.
The actual ‘news’ in these websites owes a whole lot to the print version. Certainly the best news is almost identical in both.
So this thought experiment strongly suggests that people are not tired of the kind of news that newspapers produce. Instead, they’re just choosing the ‘free’ online version. Coz it’s free, and often easier to access.
Community media an alternative? Maybe for some specific kinds of stories. I know when I thought there was an earthquake the first place I turned was Twitter. Twitter is good for reactive, first-person eyewitness reports but it’s hardly investigative, in and of itself.
Second last point. Went to PerthNorg just now. Top five stories:
1. Sourced from The Australian online
2. Sourced from news.com.au
3. Sourced from news.com.au
4. Sourced from bbc.co.uk
5. Sourced from abc.net.au.
Hardly a vote of no confidence in traditional media!
FInal point: the Pew people said on NPR that most people preferred to get local news from TV, anyway. So this is hardly a story that proves ”people are becoming disillusioned with newspapers” because they’re discovering the internet. It could just be reflecting the long-standing difference in audiences and their needs between newspapers and TV.
[...] Where are all those people who used to tell me newspapers were doing fine? Via Bronwen Clune. http://bronwenclune.com/2009/03/11/the-emporers-new-media/ [...]